Low-Timer opportunities in Canada

[mkdreamliner]

Hi guys!

Can someone give information about the opportunities (instructing/charter/etc) for guys with very low hours in Canada ..

Do you think there is a shortage of pilots in Canada or it is saturated with no opportunities for the low timers?

thx

[ScudRunner08]

Well first off do you have the right to work in Canada? If not don't read any further.

If you do have the right to work in Canada, there is no shortage of pilots here. Although the beginning of last year (2008) saw good movement and lots of hiring this ceased fairly quickly. Most new pilots with low time will spend anywhere from 1- 2 years working ramp or dispatch in some small northern town with the hopes of getting on flying as a Co-Pilot on a Piper Navajo or King Air. You won't earn very much and even when you get on flying your going to have to paint the owners house or mow his lawn when not flying. Even if you make it through all that, you will get laid off about every Year and half, some companies require you to front large sums of money that you don't have to get a job that doesn't pay much.

[justcurious]

I don't share Scud's optimism.

[Canadapilot]

Very diverse aviation industry in Canada, at the moment it seems more opportunities in Eastern Canada. As for instructing, very few jobs...most people working the ramp/desk in schools are waiting for an instructing gig so it's a long queue! Wish i hadn't wasted the money on a FI ticket! And yes, if you don't have right to work here forget it i'm afraid!

[MidgetBoy]

Western Canada is hiring instructors left and right.
Anywhere between $25-45/hr in the air, some companies pay the same air and ground, though for the higher paying ones, you're going to have to deal with many new to Canada Indian and Chinese students, quite a hassle, even for tower controllers and other pilots around.
It's great that India and China are sending their students to Canada to learn and get down some English skills as well, but when there are 20 planes in the air, 19 doing their solo following one student with an instructor on a massive train ride for hour building, it does tend to get hectic. Especially if you're not part of their school. Doing circuits at a nice little airport all alone and then WHAM 20 people come in at once and you're told to circle around off to the left because no one can understand what's going on.

ANYWAYS, I would suggest coming towards Western Canada and looking for a job, or atleast throw some resumes out there for people to look at first.

[Canadapilot]

Hiring instructors left and right? would love to know where....

[mkdreamliner]

'Just Curious' what you mean by ' I don't share Scud's optimism'?

[+TSRA]

I think JC's being sarcastic.

The world wide economic slow down has begun to take hold, at lease from my vantage point, in aviation. Our operator, much as most companies, has begun to consolidate for the anticipated hit this slow down will cause. This means that FOs are working the ramp again, and those who have been laid off from larger companies are beginning to pick up the pieces from all those King Air and Navajo Captain/FO jobs that have been thrown around AvCanada and the like. The end result of this being that not a lot of companies will hire new guys to work the ramp if they can pay their FOs to do it for them.

Same with the schools. You have Jazz drivers teaching ab initio because they have had to take reduced time blocks...not a good sign for the 250 hour Class 4 when they are fighting to take hours from a Class 1 4,000 hour Jet driver who all the students want to fly with in the hopes this instructor remembers their name 10 years down the road. Not that Im bitter about that happening a couple of years ago AT ALL... :}

Unfortunately, now is the time when those starting in aviation better be planning on working the ramp for well over 18 months if you can find work. Im not saying that it is not there, but you had better start thinking of throwing your resume out there and doing a bit of travelling like most of us had to in the early 00's. Nothing like the big road trip from East to West to make you realize how much you love (or hate) aviation!

But then, all of this is a mute point if you don't have a work visa....and "Pilot" is not exactly going to get brownie points on the application unfortunately.:ugh:

[MidgetBoy]

Like it says in my post, Western Canada. Okay, more like British Columbia. It also specifies that you have to deal with people who cannot speak broken English.

[justcurious]

As mentioned previously, I fear Scud is an optimist. Concurrent with the recession, there is a winter "drying up" of work.

If one were a licenced instructor, there may be work available. I believe that a great deal of the foreign training contracts will be drying up in the spring.

Coming into the industry now will require high levels of perseverence.